Mammoth need to take Taylor Swift’s advice after blowout loss

The state of Utah used up most of its sporting luck Saturday on the BYU-Notre Dame game.

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It was a particularly disheartening night for Utah Mammoth fans, who watched their team go down 5-0 at home against the Edmonton Oilers and eventually lose 6-2.

Mammoth head coach André Tourigny boiled it down to compete level, a hockey coach’s preferred term for effort.

“I didn’t like the way we were in our one-on-one battles, the way we were on the dirty pucks,” Tourigny said. “Our physicality was not at the (right) level.

“I want to make sure I’m clear: When I talk about physicality, I’m not talking about body checks, necessarily. I’m talking about how heavy we were in our battles. They owned the net front in our zone and in their zone.”

Connor McDavid, whose five points on Saturday padded the lead he already had as the top-scoring player all-time against the Mammoth, scored 40 seconds into the game.

It’s no surprise that the Oilers would come out swinging. McDavid & Co. are as passionate as any professional athletes out there. After losing the first half of this home-and-home series against Utah in Edmonton on Thursday, they were ready and motivated.

Per NHL PR, McDavid’s 16th-career five-point night ties him with Hall of Famers Steve Yzerman, Marcel Dionne and Jari Kurri for fourth-most in league history. Four more would put him past Phil Esposito, though the chances of catching Mario Lemieux (51) and Wayne Gretzky (96) are slim.

It’s not the first time McDavid has reached a milestone at the Delta Center.

With six goals against, the Mammoth coaching staff will have plenty of video to archive in the “what not to do” folder, but chief among them was Utah’s tendency to allow breakaways. The Oilers scored on three of them and the Mammoth goalies each stopped one.

Utah associate captain Lawson Crouse, who was on the ice for one of those goals, addressed that.

“We weren’t doing a good job of being above them,” he said. “When you look at the breakaways, it’s always a (defense) man getting burnt, but it’s not the (fault of the) D-man in every situation. The forwards need to do a better job of making sure that that D-man can feel comfortable, and it was all over the ice.

“(It) starts with the leaders. We need to be better. We know that.”

Tourigny saw each breakaway as a unique situation, but the common denominator, he said, was that his team was taking risks to tie up the score.

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What will it take for the Utah Mammoth to bounce back (again)?

This isn’t the Mammoth’s first big loss of the season. They fell 6-1 to the Boston Bruins nine days prior. Fans can take solace in the fact that they didn’t let that negatively affect their next game, and they beat the Buffalo Sabres 4-1.

Crouse believes the group can do it again, this time against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who lost in similar fashion in Las Vegas Saturday.

“It’s just about having open conversation,” he said. “There’s no finger-pointing. Everyone can be better and that’s the best part about this group. Everyone’s hungry to get better.”

Pardon the extremely corny reference, but the Mammoth need to make like Taylor Swift and “Shake It Off.”

It’s Utah’s first multi-game home stand of the season. Perhaps players sleeping in their own beds for a few consecutive nights will let them recharge a bit.

Want to see a crazy goal?

There isn’t a soul in the world who could have predicted this result when Mikhail Sergachev put a puck on top of the net in the third period.

If the puck stays on the netting, an official simply blows the whistle and the play resumes shortly thereafter. There’s no stoppage, however, if the puck bounces back into play.

Unfortunately for Oilers goaltender Tristan Jarry, it not only bounced back, but it bounced off his back and into the net.